They waited all week for someone to deliver the big hit that would snap the entire team out of its sudden offensive funk. They’ll still be waiting when they next take the field Tuesday night in New York, hoping success comes on the road, because it sure didn’t come at home.
The Nationals completed a disappointing series and a disappointing homestand this afternoon with a 4-2 loss to the Rangers, their scoring woes still the No. 1 factor at the end of a brutal week for their hitters.
The historic explosion that took place last week in Seattle and Arizona was nowhere to be found here in D.C. The same lineup that scored at least nine runs in four straight games out west scored a grand total of 11 over its last seven games, never scoring more than three in any individual contest yet still managing to win once a piece against the Cubs and Rangers (each time by the count of 2-0).
They hoped something would spring them back into action this weekend against a Texas club struggling to score runs itself. But it never happened, not during Saturday’s shutout loss and not during today’s rain-delayed loss.
When it was all over, it was former Nationals reliever Robert Garcia (traded to the Rangers in December for Nathaniel Lowe) recording the game’s final four outs to secure his fourth save of the season, dealing Trevor Williams his seventh loss in the process.
The Nationals don’t typically count on more than five innings out of their No. 5 starter, but Williams has struggled to even make it that far in recent outings. In three of his last four starts entering today, the right-hander was pulled before recording more than one out into the fifth. The lone exception: his six scoreless innings in Seattle a week and a half ago.
Williams gave manager Davey Martinez little reason to leave out there any longer this afternoon. After waiting out a 1-hour, 40-minute rain delay prior to first pitch, he put his team in an early 2-0 hole when he grooved an 87.9 mph fastball to Evan Carter and watched it sail to right-center for a second-inning homer.
Those would be the only two runs Williams allowed through the fourth, but with his pitch count already up to 72, he took the mound for the fifth on a short leash. Two batters later, Martinez was walking to the mound and signaling to his bullpen, Brad Lord asked to strand an inherited runner in scoring position.
Lord ultimately would allow that inherited runner to score, though that was made possible by an error charged to Lowe when the first baseman couldn’t handle Nasim Nunez’s throw from short for what should have been the second out of the inning. Nevertheless, the Rangers took a 3-2 lead on another short start by Williams.
Charged with two earned runs over his 4 1/3 innings, Williams now sports a 5.91 ERA in 13 starts this season. He doesn’t quite have enough innings to qualify for the league leaderboard, but if he did, that ERA would rank last among all major league starters. The fact he doesn’t qualify also speaks to a concerning issue: Williams isn’t making it deep into games, now averaging fewer than five innings per outing.
The Nationals managed to give their starter two runs of offensive support today, but even that felt like a challenge. Facing a bullpen game from the Rangers, they sent the minimum to the plate through three innings against opener Jacob Latz, the left-hander striking out six of the nine batters he faced and wiping out the two batters who did reach with double plays.
Texas manager Bruce Bochy could’ve let Latz leave on a high note (not to mention 47 pitches), but he chose to send the lefty back to the mound for the bottom of the fourth. At which point Alex Call blasted a 93 mph fastball into the left field bleachers for his second homer of the season, only two days after he recorded his first.
Latz would depart a couple of batters later with an apparent blister or cut on his hand, leaving right-hander Jacob Webb to get out of the inning. The Nats found a way to push across the game-tying run when Josh Bell chugged out a potential 4-6-3 double play and narrowly beat the throw to first, allowing Amed Rosario to score from third.
But a lineup that had a whale of a time trying to plate runs all week still needed to find a way to plate a couple more before game’s end in order to win the series. And the deficit only grew when Cole Henry served up a solo homer to Jake Burger in the top of the eighth, snapping his streak of 15 1/3 consecutive scoreless innings that dated to April 28.